


Wayfaring Strangers

by the_genderman



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Conversational Fic, Force Ghost(s), Force-Sensitive Bodhi Rook, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Gen, Heartfelt Conversations, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, taking liberties with canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29072181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_genderman/pseuds/the_genderman
Summary: The decision to defect is not made lightly, nor are the aftereffects always easy to deal with. Finn’s been feeling a little adrift ever since that fateful night on Jakku and the whirlwind of events that followed. Luckily, Leia knows someone who might just be able to understand what he’s gone through, what he’s still going through.
Relationships: Finn & Bodhi Rook
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Wayfaring Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing both of these guys, I hope I haven’t done too badly. Also, I’m putting a bit more time between TFA and TLJ so I can shoehorn this story in and also so that Finn can recover from his injury with the dignity TLJ didn’t give him. (Salty? Me? Maybe a little.)

Senator Organa had asked him if he ever got lonely, being a ghost. She thought, if she suddenly found herself floating around as the Force made visible only to a very select few, she very well might get lonely after a while, and apologized if she hadn’t always been the best company over the years. Bodhi tipped his head in a yes-and-no gesture. Yes, he did sometimes get lonely, but no, he didn’t regret a moment of the time he’d spent around her and her family. She’d helped him greatly, from the first confused moment he had become corporeal enough to see and to perceive back, and every moment since then when he’d had someone to talk to and the lives of others to observe. Lives, she said, _he_ had helped preserve. If he’d had a body, Bodhi thought he might have teared up a little when he’d heard the story of how the Death Star plans had gotten off of Scarif and into the hands of the Rebels on Yavin IV, how the suicide mission he’d signed onto had _succeeded_ against all odds. That, though he had died before he could enjoy the knowledge, people viewed him as a _hero_ of the Rebellion, not merely as an Imperial pilot whose motives some people might always hold suspect as long as he lived, had he lived. He supposed that was part of being dead, having other people tell your story, but he didn’t mind this version too much.

So when now-General Organa had said there was a newcomer to the Resistance base on D’Qar who might need someone to talk to who _understood_ what it was like to defect, Bodhi had nodded and said, sure, he’d do what he could. She had warned him that, though there was a slim chance that she was wrong and that he wouldn’t be able to see him, she had a good feeling about it. Whatever feeling she had, he was sure she was right. She usually was; that was the Force for you, or something.

\-----

Finn’s head rose at the sound of the door chime. He set down his jacket and the mending kit, stretching his arms and rolling his neck as he reached over to pick up his datapad to see who his visitor was. He’d been cleared to leave the critical care section of the medical wing, but it had been recommended that he stay in a recovery room for observation for another couple days simply because of how close to his spine the saber had come. The medics said he was healing up quite well and that, though he’d have permanent scarring—bacta might be a miracle-worker, but there were some things even it couldn’t do—he should regain full range of motion if he kept to light duties for the next couple days and didn’t aggravate the new tissue. Mending had been cleared as an acceptably light duty if he stayed in bed for it. And though Finn felt a certain degree of satisfaction from repairing the jacket Poe had given him—a little chance to use his skills to help fix and make things whole again—sewing through leather with a basic mending kit was not exactly as restful as he had hoped. He was glad for a distraction and to give his fingers and neck a break.

Tapping at his datapad, Finn brought up the doorcam. Huh, that was odd. _Must be malfunctioning_ , he thought. The doorcam made his visitor—a jumpsuit-clad man he didn’t recognize, possibly a pilot or a technician—look almost translucent. He had a sort of blue aura around him. Maybe the humidity was affecting the tech; even indoors, the Resistance base on D’Qar was considerably less climate-controlled than either Starkiller Base or the ships he’d served on, the planet and its fast-growing plants seemingly in a constant state of trying to reclaim the land.

“You can come in,” Finn said as he tapped the comms button, wondering what the usual protocol around here was for visitors. As a stormtrooper, they didn’t have ‘visitors,’ only superior officers and inspections, none of whom had to ask permission. While in the critical care wing, the medics said he wasn’t supposed to be bothered, he needed to rest and heal, but they made a couple exceptions. General Organa wanted to see him and reassure him that Rey was fine, that she’d be back once she’d completed her mission to find Luke, and Poe would have slept in the hallway until they let him in to reassure himself that Finn was going to be ok. They’d both come to visit a few times since then, but they’d always messaged him ahead of time to let him know to expect company.

When the door slid open, Finn blinked. No, his visitor looked just as glowy and translucent in person. Almost like a holo, but without the shiver of the transmission, and he’d never heard about holos that could travel without a projector. “Can I help you?” he asked, hoping his visitor wouldn’t take his confusion for rudeness. He wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject of _excuse me, why are you glowing?_ with a complete stranger. What if it was just a lingering side-effect of the meds? That would be embarrassing.

“Oh, hello, uh, you’re Finn, yes?” the visitor asked, shifting his weight from foot to foot like he was trying to hide a touch of nerves.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Finn answered, sitting up a bit straighter and trying not to show the twinge of pain from his back as he did. He gestured towards the chair in the corner. “Have a seat, if you’d like, you can move it wherever.”

“Thank you, but I’ll be fine,” the man said, reaching up and pushing his goggles further up his head before shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’m Bodhi. Bodhi Rook.” The door slid shut behind him as he stepped inside.

Finn tried to recall if he’d heard the name before. It wasn’t ringing any bells, but he’d been under some heavy pain meds and a lot of bacta the first few days on base. He shuffled rapidly through scenarios and training in his head, trying to decide what the appropriate response would be while he tried to place the man and politely figure out why he might be here. Maybe he was here to give him light-duty work assignments? He still had some pain, but he also felt like, the sooner he started contributing in ways the people here could see, the better he’d feel about belonging. And, maybe, the remaining doubters would have some of those doubts quieted.

“Is it true you used to be a stormtrooper? That you defected from the First Order?” Bodhi asked, breaking the silence without making it feel awkward.

Bodhi sounded cautiously excited, but not in the way some of the other Resistance members had. There was a subtle difference to his tone. Some of the people had sounded surprised—that he could have escaped the First Order in the first place, or that there were people within the Order who _wanted_ to leave—some had sounded skeptical, though they tried to hide it when they spoke directly to him. He still heard whispers, though. Not everyone was as excited as Rey and Poe and General Organa to have a former stormtrooper in their ranks. Not Bodhi, though. Finn thought he felt something else from him, something like a sense of kinship?

“Yeah, yeah I did,” Finn said, nodding. Watching Bodhi, waiting to see where he was taking the conversation.

“I guess you’ve been out for a bit longer than just a few days,” Bodhi said, “but the first few days are kind of rough, aren’t they? First Order, Empire, you know you can’t keep justifying what they’re doing. You know defecting’s the right thing to do, but then when you do, everything’s turned upside down. The people and places you’ve always known are suddenly different and all you know is that you have to _go_.”

Finn looked at Bodhi, really _seeing_ him. The way Bodhi spoke, he _knew_ what it was like.

“You defected too, didn’t you?” Finn asked, leaning forward, eager to hear Bodhi’s story. “When? I mean, I know the First Order wouldn’t want that kind of information to get out, but I’d never heard _anything_ about it being possible. I just knew I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t be a part of what they stood for, and I wasn’t going to kill for them. I jumped at the first opportunity that presented itself.”

“Oh, I defected from the Empire,” Bodhi replied, twisting a little to the side and pulling at the sleeve of his jumpsuit to show the patch on the shoulder. The Imperial hex symbol, only six rays, not yet evolved into the First Order’s more explosive version. “If I had the choice, I wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck with this thing on me for all eternity, but it does seem to be true that you’re stuck wearing whatever you died in.”

“Oh, you’re… dead? A ghost? I was wondering about the… glow,” Finn said, gesturing towards Bodhi with one hand, “but wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”

“I probably should have led in with that,” Bodhi said, giving a nervous little chuckle. “Yeah, I’m a ghost. One moment, I’m on Scarif, hoping beyond hope that Jyn and Cassian would be able to transmit the plans to the Rebels in orbit, and the next thing I know, I’m in the middle of a busy, unfamiliar hallway and only one person even seems to notice I’m there. It’s actually a lot less exciting than you’d think, realizing you’re dead.”

“So, you defected from Scarif?” Finn asked, scooting further up the bed and swinging his legs over the edge. “They didn’t like the ‘troopers talking too much, sharing stories—thought it might encourage individuality—but everyone heard whispers and rumors about Scarif. Everyone had heard something a little bit different, though, so we weren’t sure what had actually happened. Only that a lot of people died, the details were still classified thirty years after, and that, as a new generation of stormtroopers, we were going to ‘ _correct the mistakes the Empire made_ ’.” He made finger quotes around that.

“I died on Scarif, but, no, I actually defected from Jedha,” Bodhi answered. “I was born there, grew up under Imperial rule. I’d always wanted to be a pilot. I tried to get into the Academy, didn’t make it, but eventually ended up as a cargo pilot. Not exactly zipping around the galaxy in a shiny new TIE, but it was flying. And for a couple years, I was satisfied. I was earning decent wages, I was flying, and if I kept up the good work, maybe I’d get promoted off of the cargo ships to something bigger and better. I just had to ignore the little voice at the back of my head that didn’t agree with what they were doing to the Temple and anyone who pushed back.”

“Yeah, I know that feeling. Something’s not right, but you’re not sure what to do about it, don’t know who, if anyone, you can confide in,” Finn said, nodding encouragingly. Defectors were so rare, he wanted to know anything he was willing to tell him. And Bodhi seemed pretty excited to have someone new to talk to, as well. 

“Exactly. So, I let myself get curious,” Bodhi continued, shifting a little on his feet and folding his hands behind his back. “Nothing much, just asking a couple questions. Cargo pilots were just supposed to pick up shipments, take them were they needed to go, and not ask questions that weren’t things like ‘where’s the cargo going today?’ But I’d flown the same run, to and from the Kyber Temple, so many times, and I’d heard rumors… Official story, the kyber was being used for research on a more efficient kind of engine or power generator, but some people had theories that it was being weaponized. And those people tended to have ‘accidents’ or disappear. I didn’t like it. Well, I’d gotten friendly with some of the scientists on the other end of the run, chatting, recs for new holonovels to read, stuff like that while the shipments were being unloaded. One of them, Galen Erso, you might have heard of him, although I don’t know how much the First Order wanted to publicize his name, was always there when my shipments came in. And, maybe it was the Force, but I got a _feeling_ that he was someone I could talk to, someone safe.

“One day I, I worked up the courage to ask Galen if he knew what they were using the kyber for. I tried to be casual about it, but he just _knew_. I hadn’t realized it yet, but as soon as I’d made the decision to ask, I’d taken my first step to defecting. I didn’t use that word, didn’t want to think about leaving—where could I go? What would I do? They’d catch me if I tried to run—but the list of things that bothered me about my job just kept getting longer. Galen saw it in me. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was the Force, but I’d picked the one man on that project who understood what I was feeling. He never said it outright, never in such a way he’d get in trouble, but he asked me questions I couldn’t answer, questions that made me realize I couldn’t stay. I might just be flying the cargo runs, but every run I flew was another shipment of stolen kyber, another injustice to the temple, to Jedha City, to _my_ city and _my_ people. We started making plans. Nothing concrete yet, but he knew people, from his past, who would be able to help. He had a message he needed to get to someone who could _do_ something with it.”

“So, you both defected? You had plans? How did you manage that without anyone finding out?” Finn asked, wondering how much of what the Empire had done, how it had been run, had contributed to the extremely strict policies and rules of the First Order. “When I decided to defect, it felt like I had been… shaken awake. Like I had been sleepwalking my whole life, but now I was wide awake and I knew I couldn’t go back to how it was. I didn’t know how I was going to get out, but I _had_ to because if I didn’t, they’d find out. They’d know what had happened, know what I was thinking, and they’d send me to be reconditioned. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, I took it and ran.”

“You got out without planning?” Bodhi asked, a sense of awe or wonder creeping into his voice. It made Finn feel both warm inside and a little embarrassed. Like he’d done something far braver than what it had been. “That’s amazing! But no, Galen couldn’t leave without them getting suspicious. He was an important scientist, I was just a cargo pilot. He recorded the message, he made most of the plans, I just listened and tried to memorize everything he told me. And even though I knew I couldn’t stay, it still took days for me to work up the courage to know I’d be able to do it while we figured out how I was going to disappear and where I was going to look for his contact. And that was with me knowing Jedha City and knowing I’d have someone out there who needed the information I had. But enough about me, how did you make it out?”

“Just luck,” Finn said, shaking his head a little, thinking back and wondering what he would have done if things had been just a little different. If they hadn’t taken Poe prisoner from the village, he wouldn’t have had a pilot. He didn’t have a Galen on the inside like Bodhi had, no one to talk to who would understand. Maybe there were other stormtroopers like him who didn’t agree with what they were being ordered to do, but heretical thinking like that was swiftly punished.

“General Organa says sometimes we make our own luck, sometimes the Force helps us out,” Bodhi replied.

“I don’t know about the Force, I can’t do that kind of stuff,” Finn said. _Could he_? Throughout his life, but especially since his deployment on Jakku, there had been a handful of things he couldn’t quite explain beyond ‘just lucky’. Maybe that _was_ the Force? Well, when Rey brought Luke back, he could ask him then. Maybe. “But, I _did_ get lucky. Do you really want to hear this?”

“Of course!” Bodhi said brightly. “I mean, if you want to, I’d love to hear it.”

“I think I’d like to try,” Finn said, feeling something start to shift into into place inside him. He’d tried to hide it, had been ashamed of where he had come from, but there _was_ a power in saying it out loud. In a way, he was telling the First Order that he wasn’t their pawn, moved by an unseen hand wherever they wanted him to go. That they didn’t own him anymore. That he wasn’t afraid of them anymore. That they had tried and failed to squash him, mold him, put him in a little box, a blank white suit of plastoid armor, and erase who he was. He was done with that. His past was part of him, but it didn’t define him, and it certainly wouldn’t take his future away from him. “You grew up Imperial, so you’re the most likely to understand how I felt. I was raised to be a stormtrooper. It was all I’d ever known; no family but my fellow ‘troopers and our commanders. I’d tried, for as long as I could remember, to be a good trainee, a good soldier, a good ‘trooper. To do what they asked me to do, and do it to the best of my ability. And I _was_ good at it, always did well in training, but sometimes I’d get a feeling like what we were doing wasn’t right. No one else questioned it, though, so I tried to put it out of my head. Told myself it was just nerves and wanting to be good enough. They always told us that we were doing it for the good of the galaxy, to bring order where chaos had been allowed to spread after the end of the last Civil War.

“And then, we got word that we would be deploying for real, that we would be getting our first taste of combat.” Finn paused. Because they _had_ used the word ‘combat,’ like the ‘troopers were going to a warzone instead of a village full of civilians with maybe a handful of ancient hunting blasters to defend themselves with. “It… it wasn’t combat. It was a slaughter. The only life I had ever known was in the First Order, and if this was what we had been raised to do, then I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t do it. Maybe it _was_ brave, deciding to run, but at the time, I was terrified. Everything I had ever known was a lie that had come crashing down on me, everything ahead of me was as unknown as Wild Space, and I was drifting with no engines, no power, nothing but hope. And then, back onboard the ship, I got my first bit of luck. They’d taken one prisoner from the village—Poe Dameron, have you met him?”

“I’ve seen him around. I know who he is, but I don’t think he can see me,” Bodhi replied.

“Ok then you know, he’s a pilot,” Finn continued. “I knew that he was my chance. If I could get him out and convince him to trust me, we could both escape. If I had a pilot, then we had a chance. I needed a pilot, he needed cover, and, well, it’s a longer story than just we got out and we’re both here now, both still alive. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to tell me right now,” Bodhi said, smiling and giving his head a slow shake. “Sometimes you don’t know how much you need to say something until after you’ve said it, but also, once you start, sometimes you find there’s parts you’re not ready to talk about yet. Even if they’re good parts. Sometimes those _more_ than the bad parts, because you’ve had so much of the bad parts, it feels like if you let go of the good parts, then you might not get them back. You’re still in that stage where it doesn’t feel entirely real yet.”

Finn felt his breath catch and he exhaled slowly, shakily, looking down at his hands, folding them in his lap before looking back up at Bodhi. “That’s a really good description. I _know_ I got out, but, yeah, sometimes it still doesn’t feel completely real. When I first woke up in the medical wing, the last thing I remembered was being on Starkiller fighting Ren. I was disoriented, and for a moment, I thought we’d failed and I was back with the First Order and they were patching me up so they could make an example of me. I panicked and it wasn’t until I heard Poe’s voice—he’d already been on his way down to check on how I was doing—that I knew I was safe again.”

“Having someone there you know you can trust and who trusts _you_ is so important,” Bodhi agreed. “I’m glad you’ve got Poe. I mean, General Organa’s great too, she’s been my anchor for so long, but she’s awfully busy. You find your people and you don’t let go of them. If you can do that, then you’ve got a route forward. It might not be obvious yet, but you’ll find it. You found your way out of the First Order, you’re finding your people. I know you’ll figure out where you belong, where you’re going.”

“Thanks,” Finn said, giving a quick smile. “I hope you’re right.”

“I can feel it, the Force likes you. You’ll find your place,” Bodhi said. He glanced over as Finn’s datapad chirped. “Oh, I’ve kept you too long.”

“Not at all,” Finn said, scooting back up the bed to where he could reach out to grab the datapad. “Looks like Medical wants to check up on me again—they wanted to make sure I was awake so they wouldn’t startle me. Again—but any time you’d like to talk, I’ll be here. Or, maybe not _here_ exactly in this room, but I’ll be around this base as long as the Resistance is here and as long as they’ll have me.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it. I’ll see you around,” Bodhi said, giving Finn a little wave before he turned to leave the room.

Finn watched Bodhi go. He could never have predicted that his story, any part of it, would have led him to a heartfelt conversation with a ghost, but he was glad it had happened. With Bodhi’s help, and with Rey’s, Poe’s, General Organa’s, _all_ of their help, he’d find his path forward. He’d found his people and he wasn’t going to let anyone take them from him. He was in charge of making his own destiny now, and these were the people he wanted to make it with.

**Author's Note:**

> I like the headcanon that Bodhi is a little bit Force-sensitive, and maybe that helped him survive Bor Gullet with only temporary amnesia/confusion instead of the "tend to lose their minds" that Saw said happened to most of Bor Gullet's victims. Also because I needed him to be a Force ghost for his fic, and that he deserves to know they succeeded because that man's got Anxiety. (Also part of how/why be became a ghost for this fic, his anxiety was like "No, we're not ready to go yet!"). Long live headcanon.


End file.
